'If I had supposed that this was going to be a business interview——'
'And about your business, it seems, though I thought it was mine! Am I living on your charity?'
'No!' he thundered out, greeting the simple question and the possible denial. 'I've never paid a shilling for you.' His tone implied that he was content, moreover, to leave that state of affairs as it was.
'Then on whose?' asked Trix. Her voice became pathetic; her attitude was imploring now. She blamed herself for this, thinking it lost her all command. How profoundly wrong she was Tommy's increased distress witnessed very plainly.
'I say, now, let's discuss it calmly. Now just suppose—just take the hypothesis——'
Trix turned from him with a quick jerk of her head. The baize door outside had swung to and fro. Tommy heard it too; his eye brightened; there was no intruder whom he would not have welcomed, from the tax-collector to the bull of Bashan; he would have preferred the latter as being presumably the more violent.
'There, somebody's coming! I told you it was no place to discuss things of this kind, Mrs. Trevalla.'
'Of all cowardly creatures, men are——' began Trix.
A low, gently crooned song reached them from the passage. The words were not very distinct—Peggy sang to please herself, not to inform the world—but the air was soothing and the tones tender. Yet neither of them seemed moved to artistic enjoyment.
'Peggy, by Jove!' whispered Tommy in a fearful voice.